


Because I'm Not

by Capucine



Series: Because [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Noncon not between Tim and Jason, Rape Aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 18:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6250681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capucine/pseuds/Capucine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Red Hood is not a rapist.</p><p>Jason feels like he shouldn't have to tell people this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because I'm Not

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty dark, I suppose, and deals with messy feelings and pain and shit. You've been warned.

Jason had gotten the news a good hour after the capture had happened. He was going to have to berate his men for such fucking horrible sense of time, or some shit, but hey, at least they had The Replacement. He would have much rather caught him himself, but why look a gift bird in the beak?

Ha. He’d have to remember that one for later, when he taunted Batman.

Bastard. He wasn’t going to dwell on him right now.

He was actually in a pretty good mood at the moment—The Replacement was in his hands, crime in the areas he’d targeted was down, Batman was going just a little more psycho than usual at his shit, and oh yeah, he’d scored a spaghetti dinner that wasn’t microwaveable. Small victories and all that, besides the fucking huge one of capturing Tim Drake.

He expected maybe for Tim to be mad, or calculating, or coldly furious. Something.

Not what he saw when he opened the door, though.

“Hey, you fuckers took for…” His voice died off.

Tim’s form was positively crumpled. Curled in on itself, desperately made smaller, littered with bruises, blood, things Jason couldn’t see for the white rage building in his skull—

He was naked, completely.

“Hey, boss. Kid said, ‘Fuck you,’ so we thought—“

And maybe Jason would have changed his mind, given them a slight chance, if Tim’s eyes hadn’t cracked open, a frightened, broken blue on him. A checked out and not really himself kind of stare. The kind that said, _I fought as hard as I could and it was nothing._

And Jason didn’t even ask questions. His guns were in his hands the moment his eyes had confirmed what happened, the look on his men’s faces barely getting the chance to change from smug to ‘oh shit’ before he unloaded all he had into them.

It was quiet after the rapid, loud sounds, only Tim’s soft breaths—and Jason’s ragged breathing.

“Do you even fucking know me?!” Jason positively screamed at the corpses, wanting somehow to hurt them more as the rage seemed to snarl in his head, the angry red seemed to try to claw its way out of his throat as he just breathed hard, loud, furious and unable to punish the offenders, the monsters anymore.

God. _Fucking hell._

That was about when his eyes flicked to Tim.

‘The Pretender’ was suddenly shifted in his eyes, from bad to good—to victim. Someone it was his duty to be sure was all right.

Which he clearly wasn’t.

The kid’s wrists were zip-tied together, blood now sluggishly bleeding from the lacerations he’d made trying to get free. Or just deal with the trauma and pain. A lot of that shit could be involuntary.

Jason crouched next to him, clenching his teeth at the way the boy flinched away, eyes shutting tightly. Jason treated him much like one might a frightened child or animal, reaching out to pet his hair back from his face gently. “Hey, kid, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Only days ago, he would have gladly beaten Tim. Would have hurt him.

But not like this. 

_Never_ like this.

“Why not?” came the cracked, raspy question from Tim. He sounded tired. He sounded dead.

And Jason would throw those bastards in the Lazarus pit again just to shoot their goddamn brains out if it weren’t a waste of time. If it wouldn’t really help Tim.

He flicked out his knife, as he said, “I would never.” He said it tightly, like the words were being forced through rubber bands. He meant to continue, but he didn’t, cutting through the zip tie. Tim’s hands flopped to his sides.

Tim seemed to find this funny, snorting out a small breath of a laugh. “Never,” he repeated.

“Not _this,_ ” Jason clarified, feeling an ire rise in him. He shouldn’t have to clarify that he wasn’t a rapist, goddamnit. He wasn’t _evil_ , he wasn’t one of _them_ , the monsters that plagued this city.

He was the good guy. Or, the tainted guy who could do what good people couldn’t. Not evil, but not an angel either.

He didn’t like dwelling on that too much.

Tim was shivering, and Jason gathered the Robin cape, ignoring a sickening twist in his gut at the familiar yellow, and carefully wrapped Tim up in it. He hesitated before doing something that might frighten Tim, knowing that this was an extremely fragile emotional state. Like windshields that crack cause of the cold or something. One tap, and gone.

“Hey. Tim. I’m gonna pick you up now, okay? One arm under your knees, the other shoulders and shit, kay?”

Tim didn’t give an affirmative.

Jason sighed. “I need an answer, Tim.”

Tim looked confused at that, like he’d just expected Jason to do whatever the hell he wanted without consulting Tim, and it gave Jason a small pang, not sure if it was indicative of Tim and what he put up with or Jason’s reputation. 

“I’m not gonna do anything you’re not okay with,” Jason said, a bit gruff as he said it.

“It’s…it’s okay,” Tim rasped out, voice small and eyes somewhat unsure as they tried to see past his helmet somehow.

Shit. He should have taken that off. He did so with the clicks of the bits that held it on, tossing it aside, but not hard. It clattered a little, but not enough to make Tim jump. “Okay, Tim. I’m gonna pick you up now. If I make you feel shitty or it hurts or whatever, you say so. Okay?”

Tim didn’t respond at first, but then seemed to remember his input was needed and nodded, wincing at the bruise marks on his throat.

And Jason had to not see red. He had to be gentle. He had no one left to punish for this one.

He would probably be scouring the alleys for assholes to put out of their sickness after this.

For now, he carefully, slowly, lifted Tim, freezing when the boy made a sound and one of his hands clutched the front of his jacket. He could see Tim’s breaths racing in and out as he tried to be quiet, the way his eyes darted under his closed eyelids. The way his knuckles were turning white and it looked like he was going to lose it.

Mid squat, Jason carefully held the teen. “Hey. Hey, you’re gonna be okay. Does it hurt?”

A nod.

“Can I make it stop hurting?”

A shake, and a sob that was quickly buried, a desperate attempt at keeping composure when he’d clearly already lost it long before Jason showed up.

Jason pressed his lips between his teeth, taking a breath, and then said, “Are you gonna be okay if I stand up all the way?”

A nod.

Jason suspected he might be lying, but he stood up. He was holding him as gently, non-invasively as he could, but Tim was clearly having a rough time anyway.

They made it to one of the trucks that Jason had stolen. It was from bad guys, okay? That made it okay. He bundled Tim into the passenger side, getting him out of the cape and into the warm blanket he kept in the back (what? What if it broke down during the winter? What if he needed to save a hypothermic civilian?). Tim’s hand made a white-knuckled fist on his shirt the whole time, while Jason talked through what he was doing and got the affirmative from Tim.

Jason carefully, gently, pried off Tim’s fingers, and made it to the driver’s seat. “Do you know where we’re going?”

Tim was staring ahead blankly.

“Tim!” he said it more sharply than he’d meant to, and Tim’s eyes snapped to him.

And god, he’d done the wrong thing, because the dam broke, and Tim started crying.

Like he’d forced Tim back to reality where the unimaginably horrific had happened. He tried to calm him, turning on the heat in the truck, turning on calm music, smoothing his hair and talking to him as he buckled him in, but it was futile.

What Jason termed scream-sobs were coming from Tim, and there was no stopping them any time soon.

And Jason could do nothing, it felt like, even as he wanted to make the bastards suffer. He could only drive, giving up on trying to talk Tim down from it.

Tim needed to let the pain out.

Jason got that.

It hurt Jason just to hear it, the kind of thing that made him just wish everyone in this goddamn world would die and stop hurting each other. Would stop being such fucking assholes, god, he couldn’t even comprehend what would possess someone to do this to another, besides them being black-hearted and evil.

As Tim regained his breath, falling down to shuddering sobs, curled tight in his blanket, Jason knew that he could never see the new Robin the same way again.

No. He couldn’t hate him.

But he could hate Batman for putting a child in this kind of danger.

They arrived at the ER as Tim was losing energy to keep crying like that, when he was quiet and small, curled into himself as if to hold the pieces of him together. Jason eased him out, parking the truck in front of the ER doors and tossing the keys to the valet (perks of a children’s hospital in a more affluent area).

“Tim. If anything like this happens again—if anyone so much as touches you or looks at you funny—you call me. This cell phone. I will pick up and come bash the bastard’s skull in. Got me?”

Tim gave a weak nod, dazed as he was handed off to the staff. Jason handed them the cell phone, saying it was all he’d found with the kid.

They didn’t ask questions—yet. And they would have, except Jason slipped away in the emotionally charged moment.

The streets ran red that night. And a wedge was even more driven between Jason and Bruce.

**Author's Note:**

> It was conceived as a rebuttal to fics where Jason rapes Tim, but it's kinda more than just a rebuttal. Cause I guess it's fine to write such things, in some ways, but there should be a counterbalance, I suppose.
> 
> Cause there is no kind of person Jason hates more than rapists. And that's pretty canon.


End file.
